The Judas Line

laughed. “By human standards, that is.”

“First Water is close, on the mound of human-made earth you call a city. The large one to the east next to the ocean.”

A few seconds deciphering led me to conclude that Julian was in New York. Wonderful. I hate New York, it is too … intense. “All right, but it will take some planning. The Sicarii are careful and well protected. I am just one human.”

“There is another who will help.” I had the impression Earth wanted this done Right Now. “Second Man always looks for new challenges and has no love for your … family. It remains up to you to convince him.”

Second Man? My head throbbed even harder and I toyed with the idea of Healing it, but I’d been too cavalier with my Words lately. I wanted to avoid a serious case of Backlash, the state a magus finds himself in when too much magic, too quickly, is used, draining the magus dry. If he survived the coma, the outcome was usually loss of Words, some or all, with no capability to relearn them. It was as if the part of the brain where they were stored became permanently damaged, burned out.

“Who is Second Man?”

“Second Man is Second Man,” Earth rumbled placidly, as if that explained everything.

“That does nothing for me. Second Man … is he a magus like me?”

The geode shook, a mini-tremor that had amethyst crystals chiming. It took me a few moments to realize that Earth was laughing. Belling crystal laughter had the amethyst shaking so hard I was soon covered in purple dust.

“Oh, Son of Sicarii!” Earth groaned happily, a sound like the slow rubbing of flint. “Second Man is so much more than a mere magus. He is a magus like none other alive.

“You will rest here until you feel well enough to continue; then you will be taken to Second Man. Speak to him, convince him to aid you and return First Water.”

“Where?”

“To Water. Pour First Water into Water and it will be free.”

“And if I can’t get it? What if Julian resists my best efforts to free the First Water?”

“Then Earth will take action.”

Uh-oh. “Action.”

“Earth will swallow the mound of man-made earth and ensure the return of the First Water, should such means prove necessary.”

Swallow New York? It wasn’t hard for me to envision Earth tearing the city apart, flinging shards of cement, steel and glass into the sea. Millions would die and the responsibility of saving them was on my shoulders.

Sounded easy enough.

I emerged from the frozen soil next to Hwy 50 just outside of Gunnison, Colorado. Not that I was any great shakes at geography; Earth had placed me right next to the town’s “Welcome To” sign.

Gunnison in January … and I thought Omaha was cold! The breeze that flowed down the mountains into the little valley sheared right through my torn and bloodied jacket, raising goose bumps all over my quickly cooling flesh.

Earth had given me a rough idea where I could find this so-called “Second Man,” my potential ally against the Family. A couple hundred long, cold yards later I came across a gravel road that intersected Hwy 50. It was the one I’d been told to take, so took it I did.

The sun slipped below the horizon before I’d gone too far and things got really interesting. Hands stinging, lips numb, I stumbled along up a steep slope that only the best SUVs or mountain goats could climb. Soon I was wishing for a Sherpa. Before my skin turned too blue, I came to a copse of evergreens. Nestled there in the center like a spider in its web was a genuine log cabin. It looked like something out of a maple syrup ad. The gravel road became a driveway, which housed an old, battered, Jeep Wrangler, a menacing lump of darkness on four rugged tires.

The light streaming from the window looked warm and inviting, and I knew if I didn’t find shelter soon, my Family would be the least of my worries.

Knocking on the front door felt like it would break my poor frozen flesh and shatter my knuckles like glass. My breath fogged and I shivered uncontrollably.

The door opened, spilling golden light into my eyes that caused them to water. I blinked a few times to clear the tears away. “A shivering man bestrides the portal to my home with the appearance of the lost and forlorn,” uttered a deep voice with a heap of gravitas. “Stranger, why do you attempt such a perilous night without adequate clothing?” When my eyes finally adjusted, I took in the sight of a tall, handsome man, with slightly weather-beaten, deeply tanned skin. He was lean, with short, curly auburn hair streaked with blond, the same color as his jawline beard and moustache. His most striking feature, however, was the Glacier-style mirrored sunglasses perched high on his hawk nose. Who would wear glasses like that in the dead of night? Was he blind? “Please do the honor of granting forgiveness,” he continued. “Guests are rare and should be well received. It has been far too long since my eyes have beheld a fellow traveler.” Nope, not blind. The smile he laid on me shone with a wealth of highly polished teeth.

The Second Man mystery I’d been pondering on my cold and miserable walk up the gravel road became, in a flash of those pearlies, a mystery no more. My heart thudded so hard it felt like my ribs would crack.

You see, I’d seen that face most of my life, the Sicarii’s Most Wanted, most feared boogeyman, the Man With No Eyes. He had many names, but they all boiled down to just one: Death. Sicarii Dagger Men had targeted him as the Legend Maker: whoever managed to kill him would be the greatest assassin of all time.

Earth called him Second Man because that’s what he was, the second man to ever walk the earth, born thousands of years ago after the expulsion from Eden. The First Murderer.

Cain. Yeah, that Cain.

According to the Bible, Cain was cursed to be a restless wanderer and God said that any who slew him “will suffer vengeance seven times over.” So of course, if the Lying God said he should not be touched, the Sicarii had to try some touching With Extreme Prejudice, confidant that the Patron would have their back.

All those thoughts, those emotions, must have flitted across my face because the smile died from his. “Walter,” he called softly.

I frowned. “Walter?”

“Not you.” He pointed into the darkness behind me. “Him.”

Twisting around, I had just enough time to grunt in surprise before two large, rough hands clamped down on my shoulders hard enough for my bones to creak in protest and hoisted me effortlessly three feet in the air. A blank dark slab a foot square regarded me impassively.

“Stranger, you have the misfortune of regarding Walter, a bodyguard of no mean capability,” Cain said smoothly, without heat.

I blinked a few times because what I saw my brain couldn’t quite translate, as if my visual cortex had gone bye-bye. When comprehension finally struck, I sagged despite the numbing pain from his viselike grip. What I took to be a rough-hewn giant (at least ten feet tall) dressed in black turned out to be a creature made of wrought iron. Shaped like a man, all the joints were well articulated, delicately crafted; however, that’s where any semblance of precision ended. Where a face should have been, there was only a rough, flat, rectangular surface like the bottom of an anvil. Torso, thighs, forearms, anything that didn’t have a joint looked cobbled together, welded from whatever scraps of black iron could be found. I recognized the U shape of a horseshoe welded to its stomach, connecting foot length pieces of rebar. The thing was so massive that I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t heard it approach. A stealth monster?

On the spot where its forehead should have been I saw an inscription, just one word:??? or emet, the Hebrew word for “truth.” A cold chill that had nothing to do with the pain in my shoulders ran down my spine. A rough-hewn monster like that hadn’t been seen in centuries. A Golem.

A little background: In Prague, Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, the late sixteenth century, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel created a golem to defend the Jewish ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks and pogroms. Constructed from clay taken from the banks of the Vltava River, it was brought to life with Hebrew incantations and lengthy rituals. The golem became so violent in defense of the Jews, its attacks so heinous, that the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, begged the Rabbi to stop the golem in return for leaving the Jews alone.